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Momus
Momus
Nick Currie (born
February 11,
1960 in
Paisley,
Scotland), more popularly known under the
artist name Momus (after the
Greek god of mockery), is a
songwriter,
blogger and a journalist for
Wired. Most of his songs are self-referential or
postmodern.
For more than twenty years he has been releasing, to only marginal commercial and critical success, playful and transgressive albums on labels in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. In his lyrics and his other writing he makes, seemingly random, use of decontextualized pieces of continental, mostly French, philosophy, and has built up a personal world he says is "dominated by values like diversity,
orientalism, and a respect for otherness." He is also known in certain circles outside the U.S. as a producer. He is fascinated by
identity,
Japan, the
avant-garde,
time travel and
sex. He also wears a patch over his right eye because he lost use of it from contracting
acanthamoeba keratitis from a contact lense case washed with Greek tap water.
Contents
Career
He began by recording
post-punk material with various ex-members of
Josef K in a group called The Happy Family in the early '80s, and was associated with the musicians around
Postcard Records (although he never recorded for that label). His debut solo album "Circus Maximus" explored biblical themes in dark, almost gothic acoustic style, and his debt to the influence of Gallic pop was clear from a subsequent, sardonically self-referencing cover of Jacques Brel's "Jackie" and portraits of himself in the style of early 60s Serge Gainsbourg. In
1987, by which time he lived in
London, he signed to
Creation Records, and began to record the hyper-literate, quirky pop songs for which he is best known. A trio of albums, "The Poision Boyfriend", "Tender Pervert" and "Don't Stop The Night" blended accessible dance-pop with such heavy lyrical themes as paedophilia, necrophilia and adultery. The latter album almost yielded a hit in the UK with "The Hairstyle of the Devil". Subsequent albums on Creation included "Hippopotamomus", a scatalogical tribute to Gainsbourg, as Momus continued to push boundaries of acceptabability within accessible pop structures. By
1994, however, when Creation signed
Oasis, his music started to sound out of place on the newer, more 'laddish' and commercial sounds Creation then started to produce, and he moved to Paris and signed to
Cherry Red records. Since then he has lived in various countries and, whilst less popular in Britain, has had a reasonable level of commercial success in a number of countries, especially
Japan, where he wrote and produced records for singer Kahimi Karie, including the hit single "Good Morning World".
He has been sued by
Michelin UK, for the song "Michelin Man", which compared the mascot to a blow-up doll, on
Hippopotamomus (1991); and by
Wendy Carlos for the song "Walter Carlos" on
The Little Red Songbook (1998). In response to the debt incurred from Carlos's lawsuit, which was settled by withdrawal of the song, agreement not to use Carlos's name for any purpose whatsoever and payment of damages and attorney's fees to Carlos, Momus wrote thirty songs about every person or group who commissioned a song at the price of $1,000, compiling
Stars Forever (1999). Patrons include artist
Jeff Koons, Japanese musician
Cornelius, and three-year-old animator/superhero Noah Brill.
Stars Forever also features the winners of a
karaoke contest started on
The Little Red Songbook (1998).
Other Momus activities include writing for
Wired.com [1],
Vice Magazine [2],
Index Magazine [3],
AIGA Voice [4], and
Design Observer [5]. Momus has also been a kind of guest instructor working on sound-art projects with students first at
Future University [6] in
Hakodate,
Hokkaido,
Japan during the early months of
2005, and then again in September at
Fabrica [7], the
Benetton "research centre" near
Venice,
Italy. In 2006 he was a featured artist in the
Whitney Biennial [8] in
New York City, serving as an "unreliable tour guide" to visitors of the exhibition.
The
Fotolog.Book [9] with texts by Momus on
photoblogging published in April
2006 by
British publishers
Thames & Hudson [10].
He is a cousin of musician
Justin Currie, the lead singer and songwriter of
Del Amitri, although Momus has been critical of his musical output at times.
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